I’m a Christian, and partially because of that, my boyfriend and I have decided to wait until marriage until having sex. this is an idea I grew up with, and committed to at an early age, but no one told me HOW HARD it would be. we all know guys have high sex drives. no one told me girls did too. anyway, for those of you who find yourselves in the same or a similar predicament, here’s some things that have worked for me: 

1. There are three paths. One leads to holding hands (e.g. bumping elbows, brushing fingers), the second leads to kissing (touching faces together), and the third leads beyond that. Know which path you’re going to choose ahead of time, and don’t start down the path that you don’t want to go along. It’s a lot easier to stay outside the gate than it is to go back once you’ve started down the path. 

2. Keep yourself accountable to either a person or your journal. That will help you gauge right/wrong (i.e. if something isn’t right you’ll likely be hesitant to write down or tell someone that you’re doing it, especially if you wrote/told them ahead of time you wouldn’t do it). 

3. Going backwards ISN’T THAT HARD. I was always told that once you’ve done something, you can’t stop. that’s not true at all. it’s actually easier than holding back on something to begin with because having done it removes that “forbidden fruit” effect, and you realize, oh, not doing it actually isn’t that hard. (this may not go for some of the more emotionally intimate stuff). all this to say, if you’re doing something that you want to stop but feel like it’s too late because “you can’t go backwards”, it isn’t too late. 

4. Don’t keep bringing up the thing you’re trying not to do with each other. make a plan then DON’T talk about how hard it is to stay at – you’ll likely convince each other of a LOT like that. 

5. Find the sweet spot, where staying back is easier than going forward. There comes a point where the self control of staying a bit back is less effort than the self control required to ‘safely’ go forward – like staying closer to the edge of a river and fighting the urge to go out further is easier than fighting the current while you’re in it. 

6. NEVER do something just because other person wants to. Your dis-want is more important than their want. Similarly, you must be willing to not do something that the other doesn’t want. Don’t use the fact that the other person wants to do something as an excuse to do something you really aren’t sure you’re comfortable with 

7. Avoid media that gets thoughts going. Half the battle is in your thoughts. Don’t make it harder for yourself than it needs to be. 

8. Accept that you won’t get it perfect and you’ll make mistakes. It’s a learning curve, and you’ll have to make course corrections. Mistakes aren’t un-fixable. The important thing is that you learn from them and don’t let them happen again. 

9. If you’re a Christian, remember that God forgives. In the words of Jesus, go, and sin no more. If you’ve messed up, ask God for forgiveness and strength, then pick yourself back up and do better. 

hope this helps! 

Sex should never be something you “give in to”. Actually, ANY physical intimacy shouldn’t be something you give into. No matter how “gentle” the pressure, if you at all feel like you are “giving in” when you participate in a physical act, it is wrong. Sexuality is a gift. It’s beautiful when you give it to someone and they should be amazed by the fact that you are trusting them with something so precious. Pressure for sex is like someone coming up to you and pressuring you to give them a gift. It’s evidence that they care more about what you can give them than you yourself. It takes all the joy out of giving it and turns sexuality into a conquest instead of mutual joy.

iiicarus0:

gray

it’s difficult, it’s all just so difficult in a way that doesn’t quite make sense.

we go out to get something to eat together and there’s moment

after moment where i look at your hands or make you laugh and all

i want is more of it, more of those little moments and more,

your eyes on me, my head on your chest,

fingers moving deftly around a knife in a kitchen flooded with light,

something warm and soft and full that stings in a pleasant sort of way.

and it should be easy, i’ve always liked a little blood, always liked

the way a knife glints, always liked how it hurts when people turn away.

but it’s something different altogether, the scene’s washed in

some different kind of light. the actors are moving the same way,

we’re moving the same way, but everything is washed in red and crimson

instead of yellows and blues like it usually is, everything screams

danger and panic and grief, and it’s not familiar. it’s all wrong.

the knife raises and raises and then falls, and halfway down i can

see how it’ll all turn out, see the reflection in the camera lens, and it’s what i always wanted;

a hand reaching out to a flame and getting burned, then recoiling,

something glass and fragile being dropped from a height and shattering,

destruction and desolation and isolation and failure,

all these things i usually wanted, destruction just the way i liked it,

so why is everything crimson? where’s the horror movie soundtrack coming from?

fine, let’s change the scene. we’re on a road trip and i’m driving even

though my hands tremble on the wheel and you’ve got the radio cranked up

and you’re laughing and tossing an energy drink at me

and you look beautiful in the golden hour light and suddenly i’m hitting the brakes

and pulling off to the side of the highway because the gold shifted to crimson again.

this shouldn’t be difficult. it isn’t for everyone else.

they’ve always said it’s what makes us human. so why is it so difficult?

the director shouts again, again from somewhere and the scene shifts once more.

i’m sitting in a room illuminated by a screen your name is on and your voice is

in my ears and i’m laughing, and you’re laughing, and everyone is laughing.

you must notice that something is off because you remind me that you love me, that i’m a great friend,

but suddenly my hands are shaking again, over the keys now, and i hope

you don’t notice how unsteady my voice is when i laugh back at you,

that you don’t notice how the blood seeps out from the hollow of my chest

and trails down my ribcage, each beat twisting the knife a little more.

once more, with feeling, as if just saying that doesn’t wrench open the wound again.

we’re sitting under an old magnolia at the edge of my yard, secluded and rural.

you could scream and no one would hear you, you tell me,

and so i scream, and keep screaming, til my throat’s raw and

everything comes out red and half-gurgled. i scream and you look at me

and hold out a magnolia blossom, and we lie there together under the branches

in the hot july heat, waiting for the bad feelings to be chased away,

the knife cast away and left to rust in the tall grass somewhere else.

but that’s still not right.

but now i’ve pushed too hard and something’s wrong with the lighting on set,

crimson to green and grey and white, everything’s flashing and it’s hard to think,

and i think i see someone’s face, and i think they’re good and lovely and beautiful,

but everything is flashing and i can’t be sure, because everything is flashing

and my head is pounding and it’s too difficult to put a name to it.

what i’m feeling must be fear, but which kind? what i’m feeling

must be panic, but in what way?

when i see their face, am i afraid because i want something normal and friendly?

when i see their face, am i afraid because i want something else?

i keep trying to ask but the lights keep flashing and nobody answers.

this page of the script is blank and the director is shrouded in shadow and unresponsive.

tell me, which is it? is it love or not? can i feel love or not? can i be loved or not?

but there’s nobody working on set and i don’t know how to make the lights stop flashing.

the way they blend into each other, the way the crimson always finds a way to peek through the rest,

the way it’s all so overwhelming and god damn it’s so hard to think.

it’s supposed to be what makes us human. how are you supposed to know?

how can anybody know when it’s like this? are the lights flashing for everyone else?

fondness either grows or festers, then it’s shoved into my arms

and i have to figure out what to do with it. how am i supposed to know what it even is when the lights keep flashing?

i want to have someone, i want to be certain,

i want the scene to be holding hands in a well-lit room instead of being blind in the dark,

i want light, and i want gold, and i want the bad feeling to stay away.

-

hi, i’m ic and i’m grey-aromantic.

i’ve been feeling and thinking a lot about what that means to me lately, and figured that valentine’s day is as good a day as any to make a bit of that public, partly because i know i appreciated reading about other people’s experiences when i was trying to figure shit out, and partly because i’ve had this on my mind for so long that i kinda just want to share it.

until recently, i never had crushes. as a kid, i always figured i’d have a high school sweetheart, or find someone who makes me nervously excited with just a look eventually. and then i didn’t. for a while i thought i was aromantic, but when i found the term grey-aromantic (or grayro), something just clicked. here was a word for what i’d been feeling, or maybe what i hadn’t been feeling. here was validation for never having dated or had a crush, for feeling drawn to people but being uncertain regarding whether it was platonic or not, for having such a strange relationship with relationships.

a little over a year ago i started reading up on grey-aromanticism and felt that click. i finally stopped lying and telling myself i was completely aromantic (which was partly because of low self-esteem and partly because i’d never had a crush, which isn’t to say that aromantics are invalid because they’re just sad, not at all; that was merely my experience), and told myself that if i felt drawn to someone, i’d genuinely explore it instead of shutting it down like i had before.

onemaybe-a-crushand oneprobably-almost-certainly-a-crush later and my perspective has changed a bit, especially after the former. it made me realize that a significant part of me, in spite of all the anxiety and self-image issues, actually wants a partner. which sounds lame but as someone who spent a long time convincing myself i’d never have or deserve that, it feels nicer than i expected.

so yeah. happy valentine’s day, especially to my ace/aro spectrum folks. you’re not broken, no matter what a holiday might try and claim.

it’s that time of year again! *uses the barely too cold weather as an excuse to snuggle up real close to you at every chance*